Gone to the dogs!

I saw Marley and Me last Saturday. It was a sad movie! Any movie about life with a dog will have a sad ending. It wasn't a great movie (there were some slow spots), but it was a pleasant hour and a half. The various dogs playing Marley were adorable, and I always like Owen Wilson and Jennifer Anniston. A solid B rating.

This week, I'm going to see Doubt, Frost/Nixon, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The movies I really want to see, Rachel Getting Married and Happy Go Lucky, aren't playing anywhere near me. :(

Two weeks, two movies.

I saw Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa two weeks ago. It was hilarious and in my opinion better than the first. Some of the plot was a bit like The Lion King, but was still very enteraining! I give it a B+.

Today I saw Four Christmases, starring Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. They play a couple forced to spend Christmas with their families- both sets of parents are divorced, so there are four houses to go to- and four dysfunctional families to suffer through! Each family scene is funny, but a bit over-the-top. A solid B.

Still haven't gone to the movies...

I just haven't had time to go out. I did watch Indiana Jones IV on DVD. I must say, it was way better on the big screen. This is definitely the kind of movie meant to be enjoyed best in the theater.


This week, a live journal community I belong to is celebrating the fifth anniversary of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World with a watch-a-long...where we watch our DVDs at a certain time and comment live on the film's action and the stars. I missed the last viewing, so I'm looking forward to it. I love the movie...it's one of my all time favorites!

A dry spell.

I simply haven't had the time to go see any movies. I missed Hamlet 2 and Burn After Reading. :( I don't know if I'll get to see The Duchess. I guess I'll stick to DVDs for a while! I'm going to pick up Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull this week. I also have Leatherheads and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day to watch...if I can find the time!

Sad news...

Paul Newman has died at age 83. News just breaking.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/09/27/paul.newman.dead/index.html

Dammit. One of Hollywood's last truly great movie stars gone.

Movie plans for September.

Only three movies I want to see- Hamlet 2 (I meant to go last week, but was too busy); Burn After Reading (which looks fantastic!); and The Duchess (Keira Knightley in a costume drama. What's not to like?). Hopefully I'll get to see them. I don't know if The Duchess will play in my area.

Not much else coming. I'll have to be happy with DVDs for a while!

KM's Official End of Summer Wrap Up!

Summer is "officially" over, and I managed to squeeze in ten movies, two of them (Get Smart and Mamma Mia!) twice.

Here's my top ten in order:

1. The Dark Knight- awesome.
2. Mamma Mia! Lots of fun. Saw it twice- second time was a sing-a-long!
3. WALL*E- Brilliant
4. Pineapple Express- Funniest movie of the year.
5. Indy IV- flawed with a WTF? ending, but a great time anyway.
6. Tropic Thunder- an excellent send-up of movie making in general and war movies in particular.
7. Step Brothers- Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly are bad, bad, boys!
8. Get Smart- a fun movie, nice update of the T.V. series.
9. Hancock- entertaining, but the plot got confusing.
10. You Don't Mess With the Zohan- funny stuff.

Missed Iron Man and Kung Fu Panda. Still want to see Hamlet 2 and House Bunny.

Good summer quotes:

Pineapple Express-

Saul: Just sit back and get ready to enjoy some of the rarest weed known to mankind.
[he lights a joint and inhales]
Dale Denton: It's really that rare?
Saul: [exhales] It's, like, the rarest.
[he examines the joint]
Saul: It's almost a shame to smoke it. It's like killing a unicorn...with, like, a bomb.

Step Brothers-

Brennan Huff: I tea-bagged your drum set! *note- I didn't know what tea-bagging was before I saw this movie. I didn't want to know...*

Get Smart-

Siegfried: How do I know you're not Control?
Maxwell Smart: If I were Control, you'd already be dead.
Siegfried: If you were Control, you'd already be dead.
Maxwell Smart: Neither of us is dead, so I am obviously not from Control.
Shtarker: That actually makes sense.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull-

Col. Dr. Irina Spalko: No defiant last words, Dr. Jones?
Indiana Jones: I like Ike.

Indiana Jones: [jumping out of the car] Big damn ants, go!

Tropic Thunder-

Alpa Chino: [why he's in the movie] I had to represent. Cause they had one good role for a black man, and they gave it to Crocodile Dundee!
Kirk Lazarus: Pump your breaks, kid, that man's a national treasure.

Hancock-

Ray Embrey: Did you shove a man's head up another man's ass?
Hancock: [nods]

*that one had to be seen to be believed...*

Well, that's it for the summer of 2008. With Harry Potter moved to next July, there isn't much I'm looking forward to this fall.

That was fun...

I went to the Mamma Mia! Sing a Long on Monday. It was great! I wish more of the audience had actually been singing. I guess they didn't know all of the music. Everyone sang along with Dancing Queen, Mamma Mia, Waterloo, and Money Money Money, but I felt like I was the only one singing Honey Honey and Voulez-Vous.

"You can dance! You can jive! Having the time of your life...Ooooooooooo see that girl, watch that scene, diggin' the Dancing Queen!" *lol*

I always did like ABBA!

"Voice of the Movies" silenced...

Don Lafontaine has died. The King of Voiceovers did over 5,000 movie trailers and thousands more commercials over his career. What are movie trailers going to be like without his voice saying, "In a world..."? RIP.

http://us.imdb.com/news/ni0559639/

Sing along with Mamma?

I don't know if there's going to be a showing in my area, but I've heard that there will be Mamma Mia! Sing-a-Longs in some theaters. I hope I can find a theater! I'd love to do it. I had trouble not singing when I saw the movie last month.

Other movies- I will probably see Hamlet 2 on Monday. It looks like a total scream!

Heard the Thunder yet?

I saw Tropic Thunder today. It was awesome! Hilarious, though not as funny as Pineapple Express. It's a great send-up of war movies and movie making in general. Five actors are dropped into the jungle by their director to make their performances more realistic- when the director is killed by an old land mine, they have to try to make their way back to safety. They are captured by heroin producers who think they're actually DEA agents out to shut them down.

The beginning is a series of fake movie trailers to introduce the audience to the actors- Ben Stiller's Tugg Speedman is an action hero who wants to be taken seriously; Robert Downey Jr.'s Kirk Lazarus is an Australian bad-boy Oscar winner who is so method he has his skin dyed to play a black soldier; and Jack Black is the star of gross-out comedies who wants respectability. They're joined by a rapper-actor (named Alpa Chino- genius!) who is rather offended by Lazarus and a young newcomer who idolizes the older actors.

It's great fun to watch these five actors struggle with the reality of their situation. There's a lot of movie-style blood and gore, though it's used for laughs rather than to scare. The funniest part of the movie is the film's financial backer- played by an unrecognizable Tom Cruise. He's vulgar and selfish, and has no problem with letting his big stars die rather than pay ransom demands (to collect on insurance later). Nick Nolte also appears as the phony war hero whose book the film-in-progress is based on, and Matthew McConaughey is Tugg's agent.

What? What? WHAT????

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is being moved to July 2009!

http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/ap/20080814/121875456000.html



If they're holding it back this long, it had damn well better be good.

Funniest movie of the year!

I saw Pineapple Express last night. I have never laughed so hard at a movie. I laughed until I cried- my make up was a disaster by the end.

imdb.com summary: "A stoner and his dealer are forced to go on the run from the police after the pothead witnesses a cop commit a murder." That's the whole plot right there. It needs no other description! This movie is definitely not for people easily offended by drug humor and bad language. Drug movies aren't my thing, but I got the jokes and just laughed all the way from the first joint smoked (the Pineapple Express of the title being tested by the military) to the last case of munchies (the potheads scarfing down breakfast in the last scene). Seth Rogen and James Franco are a scream as pothead and dealer, respectively. Danny R. McBride steals the show as the dealer's supplier...who is so out of it he manages to survive being shot multiple times! There were some terrific and hilarious fight scenes, and a car chase that left me unable to breathe because I couldn't stop laughing.

I think Cheech and Chong and Harold and Kumar have some competition! The stoner action comedy...I never thought such a film could be so damned funny.

Top 20 favorite movies? Only 20?

That has to be the hardest question anyone could ever ask me. On a message board I frequent, there was a discussion of favorite movies of all time. One poster joked that choosing only 20 was like trying to choose a favorite child, and I agreed!

Here's my top 20...in no order.

Citizen Kane
Rebecca
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
LOTR trilogy (I count it as one)
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Amadeus
American Beauty
A Christmas Story
Apollo 13
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Star Wars
Terms of Endearment
Beauty and the Beast
Chicago
Back to the Future
When Harry Met Sally
Manchurian Candidate (original)
Rear Window
Vertigo
West Side Story

Honorable mentions- Wizard of Oz, Time Bandits, Ghostbusters, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Spaceballs, Blazing Saddles.

Recent favorites like Atonement, Little Miss Sunshine, Sweeney Todd, WALL-E, and Hairspray will probably sneak into my all time favorites list eventually!

No surprise here!

The Dark Knight topped $400 million in record time- just 18 days! It took 43 days for the previous record holder, Shrek 2, to make that much. In another few days, TDK will become the highest-grossing comic book film ever, beating the first Spider-Man! Wow. I wonder what the final total gross will be- maybe around $500 million...but I doubt it will beat Titanic's record.

In other Dark Knight news, Morgan Freeman was in a bad car wreck on Sunday, and is still in serious condition. Here's to his speedy recovery!

The Dark Knight

May be spoilers ahead...

Oh, my goodness. That was the best Batman movie ever. MUCH better than Batman Begins. And yes, Heath Ledger's performance makes the movie great...totally chilling, utterly unforgettable. His Joker is amazing, full of malice, bitterness, cruelty, and dark humor. But the other performances were damn fine too- Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman; Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon; Michael Caine as Wayne's loyal butler Alfred; Morgan Freeman as Wayne's gadget guru Fox; and Aaron Eckhart as D.A. Harvey Dent. And Maggie Gyllenhaal is far superior to Katie Holmes as Wayne's childhood friend, Rachel.

There were lots of scary, tense bits (such as the hospital evacuation and the the ferries playing chicken with bombs), and Dent's transformation into Two-Face is gruesome and sad. There's plenty of action and noise, but it's not gratuitous. For a comic book-turned into film, this one has a lot of emotion, too. The death of Rachel tears at Bruce, and drives Dent into madness.

What a shame we'll never see Ledger on screen again.

Quotes:

Harvey Dent: You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Joker: Here's my card. *tosses the joker playing card on the table*

Naughty but funny...

I saw Step Brothers on Saturday. It was so disgusting in parts (I cringed at the "balls on the drum set" scene)...but I laughed at every damn joke in it! Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly are the step brothers of the title, and they hate each other at first. It's hilarious to watch two overgrown boys battle each other. I was afraid that the only funny scenes had been in the trailer, but there was a lot more! It was sort of a guy flick, but that's okay. A movie called "Step Sisters" would not have worked- really, has anyone ever seen two women fighting over a drum set, wrecking a house, or trying to bury each other?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0838283/

Bring on The Dark Knight!

I finally watched Batman Begins- so I'm ready for the sequel. I liked it, though there was too much of character intros and not enough story. Once the action really starts, though, it was pretty awesome! I think I like Christian Bale better than all of the other movie Batmans. He really looks the part of the brooding billionaire/crime fighter.

Downside- Katie Holmes added nothing to the story. She can't act. I'm glad she was replaced for the sequel.

Mamma Mia!

Four stars!

I loved ABBA as a kid. I had to bite my tongue to keep from singing along.

The story is a bit lightweight- girl is getting married, invites the three men who could be her father without telling her mom they're coming, chaos ensues...but it was a fun, joyful two hours in the theater. Most of the cast could sing really well.

Great cast! Meryl Streep was at her best, and it was a hoot to hear her singing ABBA songs. Pierce Brosnan was the only cast member who really couldn't sing well, but he made up for it with charm. Colin Firth seemed a bit Darcy-like at first (hey, he can never fully escape that role), but the character loosened up through the movie. And Christine Baranski and Julie Walters stole the show as Streep's pals. The younger leads were good, too. And the chorus (a Greek chorus, hee!) was perfect!

The scenery was beautiful. I so want to go to Greece now!

Most of the best ABBA songs were here (if not actually sung, they were instrumental versions). They weren't just thrown in. They actually fit in with the story- like Money, Money, Money and The Winner Takes It All. When Streep sings Slipping Through My Fingers, I almost started crying! Baranski nearly brought down the house with Does Your Mother Know. And of course, I wanted to sing along with Mamma Mia! and Dancing Queen.

DVD watching!

I have a lot of time on my hands while I'm house sitting this week. I brought along a bunch of DVDs to watch. Tonight I watched Atonement. Tomorrow night I'll watch Sweeney Todd. I plan to watch Batman Begins...so I'll be prepared to see The Dark Knight! I also plan to watch Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World for the millionth time.

Tomorrow I'm going to see Mamma Mia! in the theater. Dark Knight will have to wait- it will be too crowded!

Another summer movie down!

My nephew wanted to see Hancock today, so I went with him. It was pretty good- a bit slow in parts, but Will Smith was great as usual. It wasn't very funny. The previews made it look like a comedy. There were a few funny bits, but it takes a bit of a serious turn. It was a different kind of superhero movie!

The previews didn't interest me much. I've already seen The Dark Knight preview about six times! I think the summer movie rush is about over. I hope the preview for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will attached to something I want to see. There's not much left!

Disney/Pixar does it again!

WALL-E was great! Easily the best Pixar movie to date. Great story, characters, visuals. Very little dialog! The movie presented a rather depressing future, with Earth becoming so polluted that humans have to go into space- where they are so pampered by machines that they get fat and lazy. Yikes. I loved WALL-E, the little garbage compactor-bot left on the ruined Earth in the 28th Century. He meets the probe EVE, who is sent to find life. He follows her back to the colony ship, and has an adventure in trying to bring the humans home.

I also loved the slight dig at big-box stores like Wal-Mart- the Buy-N-Large corporation of the film controls everything. The world leader is a CEO instead of a president or prime minister.

WALL-E's obsession with the "ancient" movie Hello, Dolly! was amusing.

There was a nice little short at the beginning. I hope it will be on the DVD.

Not sure I'll go see Hancock- the reviews have been mixed, but word of mouth is pretty good. I may wait a while for the crowds to go down.

I wasn't planning on it...

...but I saw Get Smart again today. My sister and nephew wanted to see it, and I went with them because I had nothing else to do today! It was better the second time- I was able to hear the jokes more. I missed a few because there was so much noise (especially laughter!) the first time I saw it.

Planning on seeing Hancock and WALL-E this week- but I also may end up going to see Indy 4 again!

The summer movies really haven't interested me much this year. After Mamma Mia! and The Dark Knight, there isn't anything else I want to see.

Some silly fun!

I saw You Don't Mess With the Zohan today. It was hilarious. Adam Sandler is not normally my cup of tea, but this blend of ridiculous plot and wacky characters won me over.

imdb.com summary:

"An Israeli Special Forces Soldier fakes his death so he can re-emerge in New York City as a hair stylist."

Yep, that's the plot. Absolutely insane, but fun. Nice little "Can't we all get along" message, too.

Would you believe...

..Get Smart is actually good? I laughed all the way through it. Hooray for Steve Carell! Bigger hooray for Alan Arkin as The Chief! It wasn't brilliant, but a fun romp and a fine adaptation of the television series. Three stars.

Also on the summer movie front, I loved Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, despite some re-used plot devices and the bizarre ending. I plan to see it again. I'll write a longer review then. Three and a half stars for now!

I'm probably going to see You Don't Mess With The Zohan this week, then Hancock. I'm looking most forward to Mamma Mia!, though.

RIP, Sydney Pollack...

Another one of the greats is gone. The producer, director, and actor died of cancer at 73 on Monday. He directed Tootsie, one of my favorite films of all time, and won Oscars for producing and directing Out of Africa in 1985. Most recently, he appeared in Michael Clayton as George Clooney's boss. He really was a good actor, too! I especially enjoyed his "Silence is Golden" ad for movie theaters- "Oh, I'm sorry, am I interrupting your phone call?". He will be missed.

Not a good year for the film industry, is it? Director Anthony Minghella also died recently. He and Pollack produced films together, including Cold Mountain.

Happy Birthday, Jimmy Stewart...

100 years ago today, James Stewart was born. To celebrate, Turner Classic Movies ran a marathon of some of his best films. I only got to watch the end of Vertigo and then all of Rear Window- two of my favorite movies of all time. I remember going to see them in a theater as a child- at a Hitchcock film festival. Stewart was one of the great actors. I'm thankful for channels like TCM that continue to show the really good old movies!

A new movie and a classic!

I forgot to update last week- I saw Leatherheads the Friday before last. It was a hilarious screwball comedy about the beginnings of professional football (obviously not a true story!). George Clooney directed and starred with Renée Zellweger. It was set during the 1920's and Prohibition. I loved the costumes. Zellweger was just born to play characters from this era (like Chicago), and she and Clooney worked very well together. I'm sorry this didn't do that well at the box office. The football scenes were so much fun. This was a great movie for guys and girls!

Last week on American Movie Classics, they aired WarGames to celebrate its 25th anniversary. I can't believe it's been that long. I was in the sixth grade when it came out! It's a little dated now (loved the old computers!), but the idea of someone hacking into the defense computers is still a scary thought. It was also fun to see a young Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy, both in their first big movie roles.

Not much in theaters now that I want to see. I might see Baby Mama next week- it looked good.

Funniest movies ever? Meh.

I only watch Bravo's series of "100 best" shows when I'm sick or bored. Today I was a little of both, so I watched a repeat the 100 Funniest Movies. I have to say I don't agree with their choices. Honestly, There's Something About Mary ranked higher than The Producers, Blazing Saddles, M*A*S*H, and Dr. Strangelove? No Spaceballs on the list at all? Animal House over Airplane? What the heck was Shrek doing in the Top Ten? That was funny but hardly one of the greatest. I think I like AFI's funniest film list better. It relies more on smart comedies as opposed to gross-out films like American Pie. That was another problem with the Bravo list- too much new stuff like Wedding Crashers and too few classics. The selection panel (or however they did it) must have been made up of men in their 20s-30s.

Oh, well, it's just my opinion. Personally I'm sick of gross-out comedies- it's okay in small doses, but not when the entire movie is based on it. I like good parodies and well written dialog, with some visual humor thrown in.

*is happy*

I just picked up the Sweeney Todd DVD. Don't know when I'll get to watch it, but it's mine!

There Will Be Blood is out tomorrow. I don't know if I want to own that one or not. I still haven't picked up Michael Clayton.

Almost missed it!

My mom and I saw Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day last night. It was the last night our local theater had it. I'm surprised we had it at all!

It was a delightful movie. I think it may end up being my favorite of 2008.

Set in 1930's London, the film tells the tale of Miss Guenevere Pettigrew (Frances McDormand), a mousy, starving governess who can't find steady work. She steals an appointment card from the employment agency, and finds herself as the social secretary to an American actress and singer, Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams). Over the next twenty four hours, she helps Delysia sort out her various boyfriends and get a part in a West End musical. She undergoes a transformation of her own, and in the end, helps Delysia find her true love and true self.

There are lovely performances in this movie. Amy Adams is so adorable, and Frances McDormand is believable as Miss Pettigrew. Lee Pace is fabulous as Michael, the poor pianist Delysia really loves. Shirley Henderson is perfectly nasty as a conniving fashion queen who knows Miss Pettigrew isn't what she says she is, and tries to blackmail her into getting back her boyfriend (Ciarin Hinds).

The film's atmosphere is perfect- from the grim beginning with Miss Pettigrew at the soup kitchen, to the shopping/makeover frenzy Delysia takes her on (the lingerie show is a hoot!), to a wild party, and finally a jazzy nightclub. The costumes were fantastic. I was drooling over some of the clothes...I think I may have been born in the wrong decade! There are a few heavy moments, such as an air raid (the film takes place just before WWII breaks out), and the glimpses of poverty- the Great Depression of the 1930's was world-wide. But otherwise, the film is a bright, happy treat.

I'm still looking for the novel by Winifred Watson. My library doesn't own it, and it has only recently been reprinted.

*dies from the cute*

Possible spoilers ahead....

I went to see Penelope on Friday. It was adorable. It was a nice, sweet piece of candy after all of the gloom and doom of the Oscar winners. There aren't enough movies like this- the ones that are funny, cute, and sweet without making the viewer want to throw up. The last one I can think of was Enchanted!

How can someone not love a tale of a girl cursed with a pig's nose until she finds true love with one of her own kind? Yes, that is the plot, such as it is. It doesn't need to be any deeper than that. There are charming performances all around, from Christina Ricci as the cursed girl of the title to James McAvoy as a potential suitor who isn't what he seems. Reese Witherspoon appears briefly as a friend to Penelope when she leaves home for the first time. There's also Peter Dinklage as a reporter who tries to expose Penelope's secret (and has a change of heart about that), Catherine O'Hara as her overprotective mother, and Simon Woods as the nasty Edward, a blue blooded suitor who is afraid of Penelope. It was hard to think of the nice Mr. Bingley from Pride and Prejudice as the bad Edward, but he was perfectly nasty and snobby.

I loved Penelope's delight at being out in the world for the first time. The movie is very colorful and playful in showing Penelope's world, both behind the walls of her home and beyond them. The whole Penelope/Max romance was a little bit rushed, but it is a fairy tale after all. Finally, I loved the film's "I like myself the way I am!" message. No magical first kiss to break the curse- it's more like Dorothy saying "There's no place like home".

This movie was on the shelf for two years. What a shame. It could have been seen and enjoyed so much sooner! And of course, it's getting trampled at the box office by 10,000 B.C.- give me pig-faced girls over woolly mammoths any day, please.



I would not be a very good Torchwood fan if I didn't point out that Burn Gorman (Dr. Harper) has a small role- he's the boss of the reporter. I'm wondering if his part got cut. His American accent was weird. Some British actors just don't do them well.

More sweetness and fluff at the movies next week for me- I'm going to see Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. It's based on a forgotten 1930's novel that is being rediscovered. It looks good.

12 hours, 5 movies!

AMC Theaters had an Oscar marathon on Saturday- all five Best Picture nominees. My mom and I went. She'd already seen Michael Clayton, and we'd both seen Atonement, but we enjoyed seeing them again.

Michael Clayton: It was a well-written, perfectly acted thriller with a style very similar to 70's classics such as All the President's Men. George Clooney deserved his Best Actor nomination, and if it had been any other year, he should have won! I was very happy that Tilda Swinton won Best Supporting Actress. That was one of the few surprises from last night's ceremony!

There Will Be Blood: An epic loosely based on Upton Sinclair's novel Oil! It was a wild ride, and in some places quite bizarre. It was a very interesting look at the oil industry in the early 20th Century, and what people would do to get ahead in the business. Daniel Day Lewis probably gave the performance of his career, and won his second Oscar for it. His character was conniving, heartless, and intense. I was surprised that there was so much humor throughout the film. Grim humor, but humor. "I drink your milkshake!!!" Hee. That was unexpected. I wish Paul Dano had gotten a Supporting Actor nomination as the rather hypocritical young preacher (there were shades of Elmer Gantry in his performance).

Atonement: I'm glad I got to see it twice. I loved this movie. I think it was my favorite of 2007. I loved the book, and it translated to the screen very well. I had no trouble with the time shifting/different character points of view (a quibble some viewers had). The acting, costumes, score, and photography were all perfect. I was disappointed that the only Oscar it won was for Original Score. It should have won Cinematography, and I'm still surprised that James McAvoy didn't get a Best Actor nomination.

Juno: I enjoyed this movie. I really did. Ellen Page is a terrific young actress, and I hope to see her in movies for many years to come. But I really don't understand why it got a Best Picture nomination. I felt that way about Little Miss Sunshine last year, too- and that was my favorite film of 2006. Juno was a well-written, touching, hilarious, heartbreaking, and charmingly acted film about a pregnant teen who searches for a perfect couple to give her baby to. But a Best Picture contender? Not really. That's just my humble opinion, though. I won't argue with its win for Best Original Screenplay, though- even though I thought Michael Clayton was far better. It's nice to have a comedy win a major Oscar.

And the winner is:

No Country For Old Men

Wow. That was really something. Another book adaptation (a novel by Cormac McCarthy) that was nearly perfect. And it's typical (meaning brilliant and bloody) fare from writers/directors Joel and Ethan Cohen. Murder, drugs, theft, morally ambiguous characters, dark humor, an ending that doesn't tie everything up neatly (and no happy endings, either)- it's all there. Great acting from Josh Brolin (another one who should have gotten a Best Actor nom but didn't!), Tommy Lee Jones, and Best Supporting Actor winner Javier Bardem. This was one of the few Best Pictures I've agreed with in recent years (hello, Crash over Brokeback Mountain, WTF??).

My rankings:

No Country For Old Men
Michael Clayton
Atonement
There Will Be Blood
Juno


So my viewings of the films of 2007 in the theaters is officially over. Bring on 2008! If AMC does a Best Picture Marathon in 2009, I am there.

Oops!

I forgot one movie on my 2007 list- Fred Claus. 3 stars for that one.

A quick Oscar note- my mother and I are planning to do the Oscar marathon at the nearest AMC theater. All day, all five Best Picture nominees: Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, Atonement, Juno, and There Will Be Blood. This should be a great deal of fun.

2007 in review...

Better late than never. I didn't see as many movies in the theaters as I thought. But here's a rundown:

Blades of Glory- 3 stars. Good, silly Will Ferrell fun!

Shrek the Third- 2 1/2 stars. Entertaining, but the charm has worn out.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End- 3 stars. A mess, but fun.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix- 3 1/2 stars. I saw it three times in the theater.

Hairspray- 4 stars. My favorite film of the summer. I love musicals.

Ratatouille- 3 stars. Another excellent Disney/Pixar film. Much better story than Cars.

The Simpsons Movie- 3 stars. Fun, hilarious big screen adventure of TV's favorite dysfunctional family.

The Golden Compass- 3 stars First part of the His Dark Materials Trilogy- a lavish production. The film was a little rushed and themes were toned down from the book, but it was enjoyable. Unfortunately, it did not do well at the box office in the U.S., so it's unlikely that the remaining two parts will make it to the screen.

Enchanted-3 1/2 stars. Probably the most fun I had in the theater in 2007 (except for Hairspray). A delightful send-up of the Disney princess craze and Disney movies in general- with an animated princess banished to the real world of New York City.

Sweeney Todd- 3 1/2 stars. Gory and haunting adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's musical. Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton team up once again. Sondheim's music is mostly intact, and Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Alan Rickman can really sing. It's a little too intense. I spent large portions of the film covering my eyes!

Atonement- 4 stars. Best movie I saw in 2007. Excellent adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel. Beautifully shot and acted. A four hankie movie if ever there was one- the end of the film is heartbreaking.

Still hoping to see: Kite Runner, Michael Clayton, Juno, No Country for Old Men, and There Will Be Blood. The last four and Atonement are this year's Best Picture Oscar nominees.

2007 was another good year for movies. 2008 and 2009 look a bit gloomy with the WGA strike still going on (though it may be over this week). There are still plenty of films already in the can, however, and I already have a list of what I'm looking forward to:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull- the title has me thinking WTF?, but it will be nice to have Harrison Ford back as Indy.

Mamma Mia- an adaptation of the hit Broadway show- a story about a wedding set to the music of ABBA. I loved ABBA as a kid. I'm getting "Dancing Queen" in my head now.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince- Duh. Of course I'm looking forward to this one!

Star Trek- officially, Star Trek XI- but it takes place long before the original show's adventures. I can't wait to see what the new cast and crew does with the franchise. It needs some refreshing.

A long drought...

I went a full month between movie theater trips! I did manage to catch up on some films, though. In three days, I managed to see The Golden Compass, Enchanted, and Sweeney Todd. Last Friday I saw Atonement, which was definitely the best movie I saw this year! I'll post longer reviews and my year in review later this week.